


Dust And Danger

by QueenOfNewOrleans22



Category: Young Guns (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25117924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfNewOrleans22/pseuds/QueenOfNewOrleans22
Summary: Chavez and Doc didn't die that day.
Relationships: Jose Chavez y Chavez/Josiah "Doc" Scurlock
Kudos: 6





	Dust And Danger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elamae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elamae/gifts).



> I couldn't bear to kill them...so they live.

It's been many years. 

Chavez is sure that, after all this time, his memory isn't failing him. He can remember the times of strife and fear and anger and determined survival despite the odds, can remember the pain and suffering that they'd went through, the hesitant laughs and the embarrassed tears that went by so fast, yet so slow. He can recount with startling clarity that faces of men and women, the beautiful and the ugly, twisted with the throes of death or smoothed out in a rare moment of peace. It's hardly a fanciful memory, but Chavez has nothing else to do as he stands on the porch that creaks and shudders and settled beneath him, watching as the sun rose from beyond the horizon, lighting the ground and the lone house in a golden glow, bathing the land in a magnificent light that seems too good to bother with this lonely place. 

Hardly lonely, just quiet. Chavez likes the quiet, but it feels odd, with no fighting words being yelled across miles and miles. There's no Steve to curse him and call him slurs. There's no Charlie to look halfway between willing accomplice and kicked puppy. There's no Dick to make peace between anybody. There's no Tunstall to hide his unwilling smiles. There's just Chavez and Doc, alone on the porch and asleep in bed, and a part of him wonders if he should go back up and join Doc because there's always a panic when Doc awakens without Chavez right by his side. But, if luck were to be on their side, then Doc would be calm as a lake when he awakened, and he'd maybe join Chavez to gaze out toward the sky that they'd never reach. So Chavez stays on the porch, cold but not freezing, his fingers curled around the railing and feeling the sharp bits of wood bite into his skin. 

Lincoln County hadn't changed a single bit. Chavez wasn't sure how good or bad or what-have-you that was, and wasn't sure he wanted to know. To this small, deserted town, they were loners who took pleasure in the company of one another and never bothered another soul. Some of them recognized the pair, but knew better than to say a word about it. As far as any of the knew, or, rather, anybody in a position of power knew, they were two lonely bachelors who had gained the trust of each other and hadn't found a woman to share a life with. They assumed that whatever the mysterious twosome had seen in this absence had scarred them too much to do anything more than hang around each other, the only other person who knew what they'd seen. 

Chavez liked to keep it that way. Short and simple. Nothing more than a curt nod and a few vague words. They were effective hermits, and maybe that was for the best. Just them and the horses and pigs and sheep, alone with only each other until the end of days. Chavez didn't like it any other way. He could make do, but his favorite ending to this tragic tale involved just him and Doc, jaded and weathered. 

A hand, as familiar as it was sudden, settled on his elbow, and Chavez knew who it was without turning to see. 

Doc rested his head on Chavez's shoulder, pressing up close in the chilled air. "Are you alright?" Chavez asked, his voice low. He took Doc's hand within his own. Doc nodded, "Are you?" He returned the favor, but the concern in his voice as palpable. They were older now, grizzled, with grey beginning to streak Chavez's hair and lines beginning to form on Doc's face, but they didn't look so starkly different than it'd be impossible to put two and two together. Chavez had always thought that ageing had been kind to them, especially to Doc, though his lover had taken to calling him a 'Silver Wolf.' 

"You're thinking again. About them." Doc said in the same gravelly voice that didn't quite fit his gentle demeanor and lithe frame, his arms pulled right around Chavez, as if to protect him against the cold that always came and always went. 

Chavez nodded. "Better now than later." He smoothed his thumb over Doc's hand, over the familiar scar tissue from that bullet. "Did you sleep well?" 

Doc nodded, but Chavez already knew it was a lie. He let it go, nonetheless. "It's freezing. Let's go inside." Chavez said instead of pointing it out. He knew that they'd have to care for the animals, but he was looking forward to doing nothing. Maybe he could listen to some of Doc's poems, the ones that his lover was inclined to tell him about, to recite with false grandiose that always left them both in laughter. 

They were older and scarred and jaded and weathered. Yet, they were still the same men that had enticed each other and still loved each other. 

Chavez kissed Doc's temple, smoothed back his blonde hair, which was still messy from sleep. Doc chuckled. "It already looks like a mess." He said. Chavez gave a smile that had become more and more seen in the recent years. "I like it." 

They both turned and walked inside, back into the house that still belonged to the ghost of a dead man. 


End file.
